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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22550119">The Cross Country Job</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanorb/pseuds/eleanorb'>eleanorb</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hustle, Leverage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Homophobic Language, M/M, Mention of recreational drug use, Road Trips, Slow Burn, mention of sexual abuse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 16:02:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>16,677</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22550119</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanorb/pseuds/eleanorb</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"And I'd owe you a favour."</p><p>Eliot always tells himself that all his risks are calculated. But, after the job’s done and the money’s wired he gives Quinn his phone number. Not one of the many work numbers but the number only the team has. If that’s not a risk, giving his number to a man who might one day be hired to kill him, then nothing is.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mr. Quinn/Eliot Spencer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>141</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eliot always tells himself that all his risks are calculated. But, after the job’s done and the money’s wired he gives Quinn his phone number. Not one of the many work numbers but the number only the team has. If that’s not a risk, giving his number to a man who might one day be hired to kill him, then nothing is.</p><p>Quinn looks him in the eye and offers his own.</p><p> “Just in case you have something else you can’t handle.” His eyes are bright and his mouth quirks into a little smile. If they’d been alone, rather than in a tunnel where Hardison and Chaos are bickering like kids and Parker’s listening to every word, things might have gone very differently.  But, Nate calls his team over and by the time everything settles down Quinn’s left town.</p><p>Nate makes it abundantly clear they all need to lay low for a few months. So, Eliot takes an overseas contract for a friend, and indirectly the American Government, and then a trip to a small Greek island where he intends to do nothing more taxing than lay on the beach, eat seafood and have a lot of uncomplicated anonymous sex.<br/>
</p><p>On the ferry to Fourni, between the blue sky, the blue sea and with small white houses on the horizon he gets a text.</p><p>
  <b>I hate cranes</b>
</p><p>Swiftly followed by</p><p><b>But the view is amazing</b> </p><p>and a picture of a lit conference room window taken from a height. There’s no name but that’s almost irrelevant. Though he’s not sure whether Quinn is holding a Pentax, a parabellum or a parabolic he sends the message <i><b>nice shot</b></i>. Then the ferry clunks against the jetty and he slips the phone back into his pocket.<br/>
</p><p>
The pictures come every few days after that, some with a neat captions in the corner. Lapland, where it’s apparently <i><b>‘cold, with reindeer’</b></i>, a colourful street scene which can only be Rio <i><b>‘dancing queen’</b></i>, sunsets over familiar cities and landscapes from places he knows only from books. Eliot responds, mostly with short texts but sometimes with pictures of his own. On Tuesday morning he catches an elderly Greek woman nose to nose with the cat on her windowsill. It gets him a little smiley icon in response and a note on how to adjust the exposure on his camera app. </p><p>Later that same morning he meets a Dutch couple who are looking to ‘expand their social circle’, and he doesn’t reply to Quinn’s texts for a few days. At 6am on the Sunday while he’s thinking about taking a run, he gets a picture of a misty Scottish graveyard and a question mark. A little more than an hour later, he sends a picture back of a tiny pink crab on the shoreline with the message <b>vacation</b>. That earns him the reply <b>lucky bastard</b> and a picture of bruised bloody knuckles. He can see the edge of Quinn’s tattoo at the bottom of the image and he can’t help comparing the man’s strong capable hands with the well-manicured fingers of the effete accountant he’s spent the last few days with. </p><p>***<br/>
When Hardison springs his Portland surprise, Eliot rents a little house in the suburbs, and starts planting vegetables. The pictures keep coming mostly people now, or parts of people. Not in the sense, given Quinn’s profession, you might think, but close up studies of eyes, a woman’s arm ringed in bright plastic bangles, an old man’s hands clasped over a walking stick, the backpacks of three dark-haired children. Then Venice. The back alleys, laundry strung between houses and the verdigrised lion on the Garibaldi monument.</p><p>When Eliot goes upstairs in the brewpub Hardison’s got half his screens showing the main bar of a competitor down the street while he’s playing a game with a lot of spaceships on the other. He looks up and the game pauses.</p><p>“Eliot, my man. You got a problem?”</p><p>Eliot hands over his cell. “Yeah, how do I get these pictures so I can see ’em better?”</p><p>“Your eyesight going man? I guess that’s just cos you getting old.”</p><p>“Funny. This old man can still kick your ass.” he steps right into Hardison's personal space but gets nothing more than a grin in return even when he scowls.</p><p>The photos appear on one of the smaller screens.</p><p>“They’re real good. Did you take them.”</p><p>“Nah, a friend did. ”

</p><p>“OK, “ Alec picks up a thin black tablet from a box on the floor and attaches it briefly to the laptop on the desk. “You can take this, they’re all backed up.” He shows Eliot how to zoom in and how to set a passcode both for the directory and for the tablet itself.</p><p>“Thanks. Come by the house later I want to try out a new pizza on you.”</p><p>“Does it have pineapple?”</p><p>“No, Hardison, it does not have pineapple. Entire generations of Neapolitan chefs are turning in their graves right now just cos you suggested it.” There’s no real heat in his eyes though he puts on a good show of stomping out of the room. “Seven thirty” he shouts from the end of the corridor.</p><p>Alec watches him go downstairs and then, through the security cameras, get in his truck and drive away.</p><p>The thing is, Eliot keeps them safe, physically safe, but he does the rest. He keeps them digitally safe which is becoming more important every day. Not just against hackers it’s the IRS, the FBI and all manner of TLA’s. He doesn’t think they get that, Nate especially is never going to understand, but, strangely enough, Sophie does. When this all started she gave him the contact details of a handful of people, fixers she called them. Long con players in London, Rome and Gothenburg, people who look after their teams the way he does, people she trusts. They’ve taught him far more than he could ever learn alone and that means he’s got a healthy streak of paranoia, paranoia which means he downloaded the all data from Eliot’s cell just for safety’s sake.</p><p>He sorts the pictures into date order. About half are straight cell phone photographs but the others are from a really high-end digital camera system, one which allows editing and captions, and one where the meta data hasn’t been switched off.</p><p>“And that’s real interesting” Some of the pictures once had different captions. A silhouette of a horse against a sunset sky had once been called <i><b>save a horse, ride a cowboy</b></i>. That one had been sent at three in the morning from a remote part of New Zealand.  Anatomy study, a black and white of a hand pressed to the base of someone’s throat had been titled <i><b>desire</b></i>, and a study of a man’s back in a damp t-shirt had three deleted captions all of them so obscene they make him blush. That was another one that had been sent in that limnal moment between late night and early morning.</p><p>He plots the locations and dates and runs them against the obvious databases; law enforcement, news, job offers on the dark web. Simultaneously he runs a trace on the number.</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>Then he calls Parker.</p><p>“Quinn,” he explains and shows her the files.</p><p>“So, he’s sort of flirting with Eliot but doesn’t know if he’ll get a kiss or a punch in the teeth.” She balls her fists and mimes a little punching action.</p><p>“Pretty much.”</p><p>“Can we do something about that?”</p><p>“Babe, we shouldn’t. Let ‘em sort it out themselves.” Parker pouts, and how is he supposed to resist that. Gamely, he tries “I don’t think Eliot’s into dudes.”</p><p>“Hah!”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Parker has her <i>I know a secret</i> look. </p><p>“What? He’s dated more women than I’ve had orange sodas. Well not dated exactly, I don’t think he’s seen any of them more than once or twice but he is all about the ladies.”</p><p>“Except when he’s not. “</p><p>“How?”</p><p>“I was checking out that new jewellery store on Jefferson,” she hold her hands up before he can even ask the question. “I was just looking I haven’t stolen anything… yet. I saw Eliot coming out of a bar with this really cute guy.”</p><p>“Don’t mean nothin’ could’ve been a friend.”</p><p>“A friend he was sucking face with and later on, you know,” she ducks her head then lifts it and looks him straight in the eye, “sucking other things.” Somehow, in the moment between looking down and then up, she’s found a lollypop which she pushes right between her pink lips.</p><p>Alec’s eyebrows meet his hairline and he’s about to say, or do something, though he’s not quite sure right at that moment what, when Parker’s starts talking again.</p><p>“He’s got another apartment Downtown, a really little one, like a hotel room. He has these amazing white sheets, so soft like clouds”</p><p>“You broke in? Seriously, Parker, I’m gonna have to look at the security of that place.”</p><p>“Sophie said that’d be the first thing you’d say. She also said I shouldn’t tell you.”</p><p>“You talked to Sophie before you talked to me?” </p><p>“She said I should keep it a secret but, I don’t keep secrets from you, well not important ones and I want Eliot to be happy and he likes Quinn, I know he does. He needs someone who can look out for him when we can’t.” All Parker's words run into one likes she want to get it all out as quickly as possible.</p><p>“Why’d he hide this from us?”</p><p>“Sophie says it’s because he was in the army.”</p><p>“So he comes on with all this macho, good ol’ boy, I date models and drink beer and sing sad country songs ‘cos what, ‘cos he thinks we’ll hate him for banging dudes once in a while?”</p><p>“Not us, he knows we love him, he thinks Nate might. Sophie says he doesn’t want to disappoint Nate, not be his perfect soldier.”</p><p>“That’s just fucked up.” Alec thinks Sophie might have said more and he’s definitely going to speak to her in the morning because it’s probably way more complicated than that. “Sophie said, Sophie said, did Sophie say anything about setting him up on a date with Quinn?”</p><p>“No silly, she doesn’t know about Quinn.”</p><p>He thinks about it. Eliot needs people who understand him cos fuck knows Alec doesn’t. What Eliot’s done, what he’s been, is so far out of his experience (first person shooters don’t count) that it might be a good thing if he has someone outside of the team. So he isn’t always jumping without a parachute.</p><p>Parker knows exactly when he’s makes his mind up she can see the shift from there’s a problem to what do we need to fix it. She squeals and leaps into his lap.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. It's All About the Ride</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Day 1 - Boston to Horseheads</p><p>Oh, and if you want to know what Quinn's tattoo looks like think https://www.worldtattoogallery.com/photo/100018313/solar-system-tattoo-by-balazs-bercsenyi but with more colour</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b> “…and I’d owe you a favour.”<b></b></b>
</p><p>
  
The text comes at 11 one evening.</p><p>
  <b>Abt that favour? Transport Boston to Phoenix one week?</b>
</p><p>In retrospect, there were questions he should have asked. Instead, he packs a bag and gets on a plane. 
</p><p>Twenty minutes early for the rendezvous, at a Lithuanian-American coffee shop near the Arboretum, he watches Quinn come through the door. To a casual observer the man’s smart suit, neat ponytail and polished shoes say office drone on a break even if his hands are a little rough and he scans the room like he’s waiting to be jumped. Most people don’t look further than the obvious, unless their job depends on seeing below the armour. Grifters like Sophie Devereaux, however, can tell a man’ s politics, income, sexual orientation and probably his sports team simply by where he buys his shirts or what colour socks he wears. </p><p>A closer look says Quinn’s suit is cut for a wider range of movement than swivelling in an office chair and there’s steel behind the shiny toecaps. Since Eliot last saw him he’s picked up a thin scar above his left eyebrow and one of the fingernails on his left hand is black. Even though he’s right handed Quinn tends to lead with his left and it looks like he hit something that wasn’t as yielding as flesh.</p><p>Almost subconsciously, Eliot compares him to the man…boy he spent the previous night with, Jay? Jason? he doesn’t really remember, was pretty, dumb and so submissive Eliot worried he might hurt him and the boy would say nothing, which kind of made the encounter less satisfying than it should have been. Quinn is none of those things, he’s not conventionally good looking, he’s smart, competent and, if he has a submissive bone in his body, it would take a full post mortem to find it.</p><p>He’s also a charming son of a bitch. The overworked middle-aged barista has too many customers and too few hands. Quinn tells her they are happy to wait,<i> ma’am,</i> and when she does serve their coffee, he thanks her with the proper pronunciation of her name and a decent tip.</p><p>***</p><p> When they get to the lock-up garage round the corner, Eliot catches on. 
</p><p>“We’re drivin’? In that?” <i>That</i> is a black 1966 Ford Thunderbird convertible, all bright chrome and leather seats. “We’re not freakin’ Thelma and Louise, Quinn. Should of brought my car.”</p><p> “Eliot, your car is orange, you may look like a cowboy but this isn’t the Duke’s of Hazzard.” </p><p>Eliot snorts and spends five minutes defending the Charger without thinking how Quinn knows about it. The younger man seems to have slipped under his guard without him realising. It only occurs to him much later in that moment before sleep takes him that Quinn is the person he’d hire if he was putting a contract on himself. Though, for all the man reminds him of a leopard he watched hunt in the foothills of Bhutan, he knows he doesn’t play with his food. It’d be a straight shot from a rooftop which he probably wouldn’t even hear not some long con. </p><p>“The car’s what we’re transporting?”
</p><p> “Part of it. The rest is coming,“ Quinn looks at his watch, one of those shock-proof divers watches which can’t survive being struck with say a child’s baseball bat wielded in anger, “in about half an hour.”</p><p>“So why’d it need the two of us?”</p><p> “Aww, you don’t think it’s just because I like your company? It’s a two man job because I don’t trust the client. The contact came direct, not through the usual route, and it paid a lot more than I’d expect, a hell of a lot more.” He pauses. “It’s easier to drive when you’ve got someone watching your back.” The words ‘someone you trust’ go unspoken but they are clearly meant.</p><p> So, a job Hardison would describe as <i>hinky</i>. “Phoenix. Mexican cartel, the Sinaloa’s?” he asks 
</p><p>“Collector.” Quinn actually makes air quotes round the words, which probably means the car or the other part of the package is hotter than a C-4 explosion. He picks up Eliot’s discarded coffee cup. “I’ll be 45 minutes. Why don’t you check the car over? Just in case there are any surprises.”</p><p> It’s a professional courtesy, he’s probably been over the car already, but one Eliot appreciates.</p><p> In the glovebox there are registration documents in the name of Mr J Harkness and a SIG Sauer P226X5. He picks it up. Loaded, heavy, it feels as right in his hand as a gyutou. He flicks the safety off and sights it against the corner of the door. The familiar mantra runs through his head, <i>I don’t like guns</i>, it’s what he tells his team, it’s what he told Chapman. In lots of ways, it is true and in others, well it’s safe to say he’s as much an addict as Nate. He loves that place using one takes him, the zen-like stillness, the perfect drug, where the only thing that matters is aim, fire, and recoil. What he really wants to do is tuck the automatic safe into the small of his back but with a deep breath, he shoves it back into the glovebox.</p><p> He goes over the rest of the car. There are no obvious new welds and nothing seems to have been removed and put back in a hurry. Although he can’t be absolutely sure without removing panels, which Quinn might have already done, he’s satisfied as he can be that it’s clean. There’s $800 in small bills taped under the rear seat and a decent medical kit in the trunk both of which he chalks up to professional preparedness. In the deep well under the spare there’s a AWM sniper rifle in a hard case. Pulling the stock to his shoulder, it’s clear it’s a custom build. Quinn has a couple of inches more reach and, if the scope is anything to go by, much better eyesight than him.</p><p>Forty-five minutes turns into an hour and he’s pulling out his cell when Quinn comes back carrying a bag and a briefcase. He’s changed out of the suit into something more casual, nowhere near what Eliot would call casual but definitely dressing down, even if the outfit does include a designer jacket worth more than his entire wardrobe. And thank you Sophie for spending an afternoon teaching them about the importance making the right impression with the right brands.</p><p> “Go OK? Did the contact show?”</p><p>“Yeah, British woman about as tall as you, much thinner,” his eyes track Eliot from his boots to his lips, “brown eyes, Cockney accent she was trying to hide, unsuccessfully. What?” he asks. “You need to know just in case she turns up again. Can’t be too careful.” 
</p><p>The briefcase has fingerprint and multi key locking, which honestly feels like overkill. Eliot picks it up, testing its weight. “Any ideas?”
</p><p> “Well not anything live or climate controlled so I’d say small artwork or jewellery. “ 
</p><p>“You still expecting trouble?” Eliot asks. 
</p><p>“Best to be prepared. You know, if I had to stop a car on this route I’d hire the Arlson twins.”
</p><p> “I hate those guys.” 
</p><p>“Who doesn’t. Eli’s always hyped up on coke and steroids and Kai’s just a mad fucker. Doesn’t need any chemical help. But, regrettably, they are the best at what they do.”
</p><p> “Eli’s the left handed one?” 
</p><p>“Nah, that’s Kai. I shot him in the ass about six months ago and we all know he’s not the forgiving and forgetting type. You heard about, Shaw?”
</p><p> “Yeah. Six months in rehab.” 
</p><p>Quinn taps on the glove box. “Insurance.”
</p><p> “Won’t need it.” 
</p><p>***
</p><p>It takes them a couple of hours to get out of Boston, and it puts them both on edge. Stalled traffic is a bitch and the perfect place for a smash and grab with bikes, even allowing for possible witnesses and collateral damage. Quinn drives like he fights, all speed and aggression, pushing the lumbering chassis through gaps too small for it. Finally, Eliot’s had enough.
</p><p> "It’s gonna overheat if you carry on like that. Get out, I’m driving. Car like this needs to be treated with a little respect.” he expects a fight but doesn’t get one.  Quinn holds his hands up and they swap seats. “And keep your eye on that grey sedan three cars back. It’s been on our tail since the intersection.” 
</p><p>“Got it. Driver in his thirties, goatee, which is a really bad look on him by the way. Passenger’s a teen who looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. ” Quinn’s more settled now he’s not trying to thread the Thunderbird through the eye of a needle. Not relaxed but not tapping his fingers or pushing those loose strands of hair behind his ear every two minutes. 
</p><p>Eliot takes a deep breath and rolls his shoulders. Twenty minutes later, they pull alongside a dirty blue pickup with a huge Newfoundland in the back, mouth open in a happy doggy smile. Quinn rolls the window down. Moments later Eliot’s phone vibrates in his pocket as he gets the picture. 
</p><p>“I’m right here, man.” 
</p><p>*** 
</p><p>It’s only when they reach a long stretch of quiet highway that he finally picks up on something that’s been nagging at him all day. Honestly, he’d never have noticed before he met Sophie. Quinn code switches, the grifters trick of changing your accent or body language to match that of the mark, a useful skill, one that can gain trust or make you inconspicuous. With the woman in the coffee shop, there was the slightest suggestion of guttural Lithuanian. With him, it’s the lengthening of vowels, a slower pattern of speech. It’s subtle, not overt and he wonders if Quinn even knows he doing it. 
</p><p>**** 
</p><p>Later still, when the sky’s lit red and yellow on the horizon they catch up with a fairground ride on the back of an eighteen-wheeler. It’s all prancing ponies and bright colours. The sort that went out of fashion right when geeks like Hardison started preferring imaginary worlds to real ones. The road ahead is clear and wide so he pulls alongside. Quinn reaches back to the bag he stowed behind the seat and pulls out a black and silver Leica. A click of the shutter and it all clicks for Eliot too. He told Parker once <i>“It's like letting a stranger in your head just for a second. And you allow them to feel what you're feeling.” </i>For him it’s cooking and for Quinn it’s photography. Sharing something beautiful in a hard world. 
</p><p>*** 
</p><p>At the motel, while Eliot’s unlacing his boots, Quinn strips down to a white undershirt and stretches the kinks out of his back and shoulders. He’s got a swimmers build, all sleek skin over well-defined muscle and his left arm is a riot of tattooed colour. From his shoulder down there’s a stylised solar system and then, just below his elbow, a ring of blocky text which Eliot can’t read.
</p><p>“Singapore?” He gestures at Quinn who just looks confused “The ink, you don’t see those colours used anywhere else. It’s very distinctive.”
</p><p>“Yeah, a little place near Masjid Sultan. Took three sessions. Endorphins had me high as a kite after the first one. Felt like I was shaking out of my skin for about an hour.” He turns, scratching his hand through his hair then rubbing the back of his neck. “How about you? No crossed six shooters above your heart or spurs on your ass?”
</p><p> “I hate needles.” He laughs and walks through to the bathroom. Can’t help, while he’s taking a piss, running his fingers over that shiny patch of skin on the inside of his hipbone where there’d once been a small red and white checked shield. The first thing he’d done with that big score, before the car, before anything else, had been to have it lasered off. He’s come to terms with the fact that he can’t atone for the things he’s done but he did feel entitled just that once to remove one of their symbols.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Criminal Imagination</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Day 2 Horseheads to Lewisburg</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They sleep in shifts, the briefcase pushed under the bed furthest from the door. Eliot reads a nearly quarter of his book on Kit Carson and all of a magazine on European food and travel trends that someone has left in the room. He’s still not sure why anyone would choose to travel to Poznan without being in handcuffs.

</p><p>Quinn sleeps still as a corpse and wakes the moment he hears his name.

</p><p>Though they’ve done nothing more taxing than driving, Eliot drops into sleep like a rock through water. Granted, he can sleep anywhere, the legacy of an army lifestyle but, these days it’s much harder to settle when there’s someone else in the room. When he wakes, it’s well past dawn, there’s soft music coming from across the room and Quinn’s working, shirtless and barefoot, through the complex forms of Wu Hao shi taijiquan. The flowing movements highlight the definition of his muscles, the preciseness of his control.  Gradually, he moves into some more general stretches and the weak sunlight through the curtains catches the sweat across his shoulders and beading down his spine. When he bends slowly forward and rests his forehead on his knees Eliot finds himself biting his lip, his pulse hitching up hard from its usual resting fifty-five.

</p><p>***

</p><p>He lets Quinn drive the first part of the journey forgetting this isn’t his job and he isn’t calling the shots. He misses the smirk as Quinn settles into the seat but not the yawn and the long stretch of his lean body.

</p><p>The traffic’s light but enough to keep them under fifty. They both watch the road, the cars behind and those that might pull across their path, neither of them happy until they can leave suburbia and Quinn can put his foot down. It’s only then they talk.

</p><p>Eliot spends so much time protecting the team from who he was, deep down who he still is, that it leaves him feeling like he’s stitched up the wound but left the bullet inside. So, there’s a freedom in talking to Quinn. A freedom that comes without the need to self-censor or second-guess what he should or shouldn’t say. They speak the same language. They both know what it’s like to stitch your own wounds, to bind broken bones, to make sure the other man doesn’t get up, to differentiate between what will kill you and what just feels like it will. Even with that, the other man is a bit of a mystery. There are significant gaps in the mental resume Eliot holds for him.

</p><p>One thing is blindingly obvious, Quinn has never served in the military; he doesn’t use the right slang, make the obvious references or, to Eliot’s trained eyes, hold himself in quite the right way. It’s odd, most people in his trade have served in some way or another be it Delta Force, the SAS or Sayeret Matkal. The other route, up through gangland, doesn’t sit right either. He’s  had a decent education, more than Eliot’s mostly self-taught post high-school one, which doesn’t square with gangbanger recruits and his tattoos are art not gang tags. Of course Eliot doesn’t probe, that isn’t the way this works but he listens, and collects all the little ways the other man gives information away.

</p><p>He has a dry sense of humour and when he’s not channelling the focus he uses on a job, a tendency to talk with his hands. Passionate about the visual arts he gestures widely when he’s describing a Mapplethorpe or Newton photograph, sometimes to the detriment of his steering. Eliot has to stop himself grabbing the wheel a couple of times and finally takes over the driving again with a sigh of relief, a little feigned but the car is fantastic to drive.

</p><p>Of course they talk about work. Not gossip, if asked both would say men don’t gossip. But, minus a few names, dates and locations, they do tell each other stories, which might or might not be true. Plausible deniability is important. Even so, Eliot can’t resist telling his best story, the one that cemented his reputation, escorting the famous Russian intelligence officer, Colonel Darya Aristova, through Ukraine when she defected to the West. He lifts his shirts to show Quinn the scar he has on his hip from that job. “Twenty-three stitches, bled like a pig in an abattoir.”
</p><p>***
</p><p><i>“You should have seen them. A perfect pair of 1928 Purdy hammerless shotguns and the jackass rapper just wanted them because he thought they would look good on his promo poster. Granted they are pretty but, they’re made to be used.”</i><br/>
</p><p>***
</p><p>"And Hardison's in the back of the van covered in bees but he can't make a noise ‘cos the mark is right outside with his hand up Sophie's skirt. I had to bust in and play the jealous boyfriend. All the cat says is ‘are you interested in a threesome’."
</p><p>***
</p><p><i>"I got to Kracovets at midnight and it was only then I found out the fucking rabbit glowed in the dark"</i>
</p><p>***
</p><p>"…dress shoes, on a frozen lake. They shot right through the ice with a grenade launcher."
</p><p>***
</p><p><i>" He's spitting blood and teeth right on to this twelfth century manuscript..."</i>
</p><p>***
</p><p>“…all I had was a set of lockpicks. He didn’t get up.”
</p><p>***
</p><p><i>”You know, Scots guy, uses cunt as a noun, a verb and an adjective all in the same sentence. Wouldn’t trust him to open a door for me. But he does have the best MDMA in Europe.”</i>
</p><p>***
</p><p>“I bid on that job.”
</p><p>“So did I. Got heavily undercut.”
</p><p>“Turned into a shit storm anyway.”
</p><p>“That's what you get when you don't hire professionals.”
</p><p>***
</p><p>When they swap seats again at a little mom and pop diner he catches Quinn in profile. The afternoon sun catches his pale eyelashes and the gold tints in his stubble. “How come you’ve never had your nose broken?”
</p><p>“Just lucky. “ Quinn rubs his the left side of his face. “Got my cheekbone broken twice in the same year, the second time by you.” He prods at the bone. They put a titanium plate in here, it makes my teeth ache in the cold.”
</p><p>“You know it was your own fault, you should’ve been quicker.” Eliot’s not sympathetic where work is concerned. How are people going to learn otherwise.
</p><p>“Sterling tried to get the retainer back on that job.”
</p><p>“What did you do?”
</p><p>“Set up on the building opposite and shot out all the windows of his condo. Took under three minutes to get him to change his mind.”
</p><p>“Nice, I usually just punch him in the face…more than once.”
</p><p>Quinn laughs. “We could do that again. Make a day of it.”</p><p>***
</p><p>Driving towards Lewisberg at the end of the day they compromise on a rock radio station that has enough Bob Segar, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Whiskey Meyers for Eliot to tap his fingers on the steering wheel while not annoying Quinn who predictably has strong feelings about what’s musically acceptable.
</p><p>Fifteen minutes from the motel they play Pink Floyd’s <i>Wish You Were Here</i> and out of the corner of his eye he can see Quinn knows all the words. It must have been obvious he was watching because Quinn half turns towards him. “My brother Matti loved Pink Floyd.” he says. Eliot notes the past tense but doesn’t ask the obvious question. Instead he gives a little of himself in return as the song changes. “My sister’s still obsessed with Gun’s ‘n Roses, even though Axl’s fat and his voice has gone.”
</p><p>***
</p><p>The motel is a perfect little slice of 1960’s Americana with a huge red and green neon sign and neat retro rooms. Quinn disappears with his camera and comes back an hour later smiling and bearing pizza.
</p><p>Later, when Eliot’s leaning on the rail outside the room, he hears a distinctive shutter click.
</p><p>“Sorry, couldn’t resist. I’ll delete it if you want.” Quinn holds out the camera.
</p><p>On the little screen, Eliot’s face is in shadow, the foreground lit by the motel sign. The photograph makes him look timeless, like he could have been there in the sixties, between jobs or on his way to Woodstock or a rodeo.
</p><p>“It’s OK, keep it.”
</p><p>“You should sit for me sometime, Eliot.”
</p><p>“I’m hardly model material. You’d be better asking Sophie or Parker.”
</p><p>Quinn tips his head, looks him over slowly, and raises the camera again.
</p><p>He’s not normally this slow on the uptake, it’s obvious when women are flirting with him. But, in the bars and clubs he visits to pick up men there’s an understanding, everyone knows what you’re there for and there’s no need to work for it. This is different enough that he’s unsure whether he’s reading it right, whether he wants to read it at all.
</p><p>A car pulls off the freeway, headlights breaking the dark intimacy of the moment and it’s all work again, as they both check for threats and make sure the package is secure.
 </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Eye to Eye</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please note additional tags added.<br/>Thank you so much to everyone who has left such beautiful encouraging comments. I really appreciate it. This ones for you.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Day 3 – Eye to Eye<br/>
Lewisburg OH to Tulsa</p><p>Now they’re further west the heat and humidity promises a storm. Eliot cracks open the window and gazes out at the Thunderbird, the neon of the motel sign reflected and fractured by its chrome trim. It’s nights like these, waiting and watching, that he sometimes regrets giving up smoking, misses the easy meditation of the inhale and exhale. He tries to get into that zone now, takes slow even breaths, but calm seems further away than ever.  
</p><p>As he puts it down, his coffee cup clicks on the table and Quinn shifts restlessly in his sleep, his hand moving closer to the automatic Eliot knows is under the pillow. His hair has slipped out of the band holding it, the curls falling haphazardly across his face and Eliot can’t help turning his attention from the window to the man sprawled across the bed. 
</p><p>He’s thought about this a lot over the last few hours. He’s not stupid, no matter what Hardison might think, and say, because Hardison’s nothing if not an over-sharer.
</p><p>He knows what it’s like to work alone. For your only constant to be someone at the end of a phone line who finds you people to shoot or things to transport. To store your precious things, if you have any, in random units in random cities. To spend most of the year in shitty hotels, in countries where you barely speak the language, waiting for something to be delivered or collected. Losing too many years cycling from high adrenaline to the sort of crash that leaves you drinking, snorting or smoking just to feel anything at all. Despite telling yourself that you don’t need anyone, you keep looking for ways you can make a human connection.
</p><p>He thought he’d found it in the Army, a new family to replace the one that gave up on him. But, he saw too much to accept what he was doing was for the greater good. And once he started thinking that way, it was just one short step from doing fucked up things for a pittance to doing them for a decent paycheck and arguably less risk. 
</p><p>Then Moreau, well, that clever bastard knew what he needed, called him brother, gave him a home and a purpose. It wasn’t long before he was waking in the Devil’s arms, well on the road to Hell. 
</p><p>No matter what the others might imagine, and he’s sure they’ve thought about it, his relationship with Damien was never purely professional or one sided. Even after that last job, the one he did out of loyalty and, he can admit this if only to himself, love, he could only hate himself for being weak, not Damien for insisting. 
</p><p>There’s an odd sort of pride in knowing he’s the only person, man or woman, Moreau has ever let walk away. 
</p><p>And, his new ‘family’? For all their swagger and bravado, they are so very vulnerable. Hardison and Parker treat it all like a game, Nate’s almost suicidally reckless and Sophie, for all that she’s the most professional of them, has a streak of sentimentality so wide it can, and often does, cloud her judgement. In his opinion, they take too many risks and leave themselves open far too often. They need him to keep them safe and sane and, if he’s honest, he needs them to give him reasons to stay on the side of the angels.
</p><p>He can see Quinn’s looking for that connection. It’s in the way he gives little pieces of himself away and most of all, in the way he looks at Eliot as if he’s trying to decide how to photograph the light and shade he carries. And yes, there’s that other offer too. The one that says I’d like to have you naked in my bed moaning in all the right ways. Quinn has an easy physicality and a sharp mind. More than that he has skills Eliot respects. He’s an equal in ways those <i>one-night stand, no encores</i> can never be. It would be easy to be friends or more. 
</p><p>Quinn’s still now, breathing easily, well into REM sleep and Eliot’s loathed to wake him so they can change over. He waits until the other man’s eyelids stop flickering, till he moves through his dream. It’s only then that he says his name. 
</p><p>***
</p><p>They drive for a couple of hours with the radio on, easy and comfortable. Quinn messes with the camera looking at the pictures he took the previous night and snapping a few extra of Eliot driving, though from his regular commentary he’s also keeping an eye on the road.  When his cell rings Eliot gestures towards an empty lot.
</p><p> Quinn nods. When the car stops, he opens the glove box and slips the automatic into his waistband. The Sig bothers Eliot. It makes it too easy for simple situations to escalate. Rationally, he knows it’s not his decision, Quinn’s a professional; he knows how to evaluate a threat. But that little voice in his head is persistent, he’d still rather make the call where guns are involved.
</p><p> Quinn paces from the car to the edge of the lot and back. “You told them eight, right? Tuesday?” He moves out of earshot and never has the phrase <i>I love to see you walking away</i> been more apt. He turns and Eliot has to concede the front view is worth a look too. 
</p><p>“No! How many times have I told you I don’t take jobs like that. Don’t even think about putting my name on the list!” Suddenly Quinn’s furious, showing an explosive temper Eliot suspected he had, and gesturing wildly with the hand not holding the cell. He gets back in the car slamming the door hard enough to rattle the windows and throws the cell into the footwell.
</p><p>“OK? You turning down work?”
</p><p>“That sort, yes. Client wants the lover dead and the wife hurt and that’s really not…I don’t take that sort of job. Trouble is, poor bitch, someone else will.” He closes his eyes and takes a steadying breath.
</p><p>Eliot gets it straight away, sexual assault of one kind or another is a common tool of revenge and sometimes, if you work for the wrong people or if you make the wrong choices, it’s a tool you’re paid to use. He pulls back into the traffic and focusses on the road.
</p><p>Quinn’s quiet for the next ten or so miles, taking his watch on and off, clearly unsettled.
</p><p>“You alright, Quinn?”
</p><p>“Yeah, you know I don’t do that right? It’s one thing to take someone down quick and clean or to go up against someone who’s paid to do the same job as you. But that’s just fucked up.” 
</p><p>While Eliot might not know much about the other man’s past, he does know quite a lot about the last few years courtesy of a couple of old contacts. He wouldn’t have let anyone within 100 yards of Sophie and Parker if their rep implied they took that type of job. Quinn’s wetwork has been broadly political, and his courier work pharmaceutical or fence to buyer. There’s the usual security and consultancy work they all do, lots of standing in corridors and punching the odd intruder but, nothing to suggest he works at the punishment end of the business.
</p><p>“Don’t worry, I know.” he says and reaches over pressing a light touch to Quinn’s forearm. 
</p><p><b>Later</b>
</p><p>“I can’t believe you’ve never seen it. Kilmer’s perfect as Morrison. It’s an uncanny performance.”
</p><p>“I aint into musicals.”
</p><p>“It’s not a musical.” Quinn sounds as exasperated as Hardison when he’s trying to explain some complex piece of tech. “It’s a biopic. Kilmer’s so underrated as an actor. You’ve seen Heat, right? Great reload.”
</p><p>“Yeah, knew an instructor who used it for training.” He adopts a New York accent “<i>If a damn pansy-ass ac-tor can do it, you boys can.</i> Course half of them couldn’t even after six weeks.”
</p><p>“So, favourite movie? Wait I’ll guess, <i>The Unforgiven</i> or…” he glances over, his lower lip between his teeth and a thoughtful expression, “<i>Young Guns</i>.”
</p><p>Eliot doesn’t rise to the bait. “Well, they’re both up there, top ten. Come on, <i>Young Guns</i> is one of the most historically accurate movies about the West. But you know, <i>True Grit</i>, the original, not the remake, though that’s not horrible either.”
</p><p>“Oh, you old romantic. Hey, that black Toyota’s been with us a while, two passengers, baseball caps and neck tattoos. Take a left up there.”
</p><p>It proves to be nothing, but the detour takes them on to the old Route 66, a welcome break from the congested interstate.
</p><p>“Yours has to be <i>Rear Window</i>.”
</p><p>“You’d think that but, no.<i> Blow Up</i>, British film from the sixties. David Hemmings sees what he thinks is a murder in the background of one of his photos. One of the sexiest films ever made.”
</p><p>“I’m willing to bet your fee for this job I’ve seen better porn.” 
</p><p>“Ah, but not with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck on the soundtrack.”
</p><p>Given a choice, neither of them is happy to stop at chain restaurants. <i>“The coffee tastes like someone pissed over the beans and heated the water up.”</i> Is Quinn’s considered opinion. So, when they do stop it’s at a small-town diner with leatherette booths, wood panelling and a board on the wall covered in small denomination foreign banknotes. 
</p><p>It’s well after the lunchtime rush so there’s only a middle-aged couple at the back who are definitely married, but not to each other, and an old man in a worn denim-blue boiler suit who reminds Eliot of his grandfather. The girl behind the counter, bitten fingernails and badly dyed hair, can’t be more than sixteen but, she’s good at her job and is pouring them mugs of decent coffee as soon as they sit down.
</p><p>A wave of nostalgia hits Eliot the minute he picks up the menu. Fried chicken, catfish, home style fries. It’s like every diner in the small towns he grew up in and he half expects some old neighbour to walk through the door at any moment. 
</p><p>He wonders if it’s the same for Quinn but suspects not. The other man’s ambiguous accent, his dress sense, even his cultural references point to something more urban. Quinn knows tailors who can cut a suit to disguise a shoulder holster not ladies in backrooms who can fix your pop’s second-best suit so you can wear it to prom.
</p><p>Despite himself and sensible diet be damned, he orders the catfish special and enjoys every bite. Quinn opts for the club sandwich but steals Eliot’s fries every time he as much as glances out of the window or at the waitress. Fifteen minutes later the couple from the back leave, in separate cars, and the senior citizen at the counter tips one more shot from his flask into his coffee.
</p><p>When he comes back from the restroom the old guy is right up in Quinn’s face and Eliot hears the slurred stream of insults ending with a barked out “Faggot!”. They’re inches apart and he can almost hear the air around them buzzing like a Miller Lite sign. This isn’t the sort of exposure they need. He might not be wanted in the US but he has no idea about Quinn. He catches his eye and gestures <i>outside</i>.
</p><p>As he steps up, the old man’s bleary-eyed attention turns on him. 
</p><p>“You and your” he pauses and looks Quinn up and down from his polished boots to the thin black bracelets round his right wrist, “boy planning on staying?” Eliot’s half a step forward before he can stop himself. 
</p><p>Quinn moves his hand to cover the old man’s, fingers tightening across the wrinkled knuckles. “I think,” he says, “you should reconsider your language.” 
</p><p>The man stammers an apology, realising he’s bitten off more than can chew.  
</p><p>Eliot gestures <i>outside</i> again.
</p><p>”Figured we didn’t need the attention. Not with what we’ve got in the car.”
</p><p>If he’d been thirty-five not seventy-five, I’d have broken his jaw just on principle. But, he’s an old man, not that that excuses anything. Besides” he gestures through the diner window where the waitress looks like she’s about to punch the man herself. “I think my honour, and yours, is being defended robustly enough.”
</p><p>“So you, men, women, both, neither?” Eliot asks the question he’s 90% sure he knows the answer to already.
</p><p>Quinn give him a look which probably says <i>‘and you’re asking me this now’</i> before he replies. “Well like James Dean said, <i> ‘I'm not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back.’</i>. But, yes, I’ve got a preference.” Whether the lick of his lips is involuntary or calculated it’s impossible to tell but it definitely addresses any questions Eliot might have had.
</p><p> “I’ll remember that” Eliot replies and if Quinn had been a woman, without doubt he’d have added <i>darlin’</i> to that sentence. His expression says it anyway.
</p><p>Anything else they’re about to say is interrupted by the waitress barrelling out of the diner. “Hey mister, mister, wait up! I’m sorry, Mr Peterson’s a drunk, and” she adds, “an asshole.”
</p><p> Quinn turns on all the charm with her, soft and reassuring. 
</p><p> When she leaves, Eliot realises there’s something he’s never asked. The account Hardison sent Quinn’s fee to was a company in the Caymans <i>Bersagli Inc.</i> rather than a personal one.
</p><p>“Mr <i>what</i> Quinn? Hell, do you even have another name?”
</p><p>“You mean am I like Parker? Of course I do. I just haven’t used it in years. It’s easier to brand one name, get a rep. Unless of course you’re Eliot Spencer and people use both your names like it’s a curse,“ he pauses, “or a blessing.”
</p><p>“So, Quinn’s what? Your last name?” 
</p><p>Quinn flutters his right hand. “Close enough.” 
</p><p>“You gonna make me guess the rest?”
</p><p>Quinn looks at him over the top of the car. “I might. It’s complicated. Have you always been Eliot Spencer?”
</p><p>“Yeah. Cons aside. Yeah.”
</p><p>“Well I’ve been a lot of things.”
</p><p>“So, Clyde? Linus? Erwin?” When they get back in the car Eliot’s suggestions go on getting more ridiculous until they are both laughing.
</p><p>“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” Quinn’s lips purse in a supressed smile.
</p><p>Eliot’s serious for a moment. “Should I?” he asks.
</p><p>Quinn shrugs but there’s still the light of humour in his eyes so he doesn’t think he’s screwed up too badly. 
</p><p>“Well if you looked hard enough and in the right places there’s probably something, somewhere that says Thomas on it.”
</p><p>Just for a moment Eliot hears pronunciation which really isn’t American English at all. He nods.
</p><p>“It was a long time ago.” Quinn says and reaches for the radio. 
</p><p>Over the next 15 minutes Eliot learns that while Quinn’s good at a lot of things, he can’t carry a tune in a bucket.
</p><p>***
</p><p>Late in the afternoon, with the heat shimmering on the road, the car becomes unbearable. They stop and fold back the top.
</p><p>”We really are <i>Thelma and Louise.</i>.”
</p><p>”I can’t believe you’ve seen that movie.”
</p><p>Quinn drives with his arm across the back of the seat, sleeves rolled up.  He’s got big hands, strong wrists, muscles and tendons shifting when he flexes his fingers. Eliot tries not to look.
</p><p> They reach a long stretch of clear road, Quinn puts his foot down and there a sudden bang, steam pouring from under the hood. He slides the car to a stop by the side of a field of corn. Again, he reaches for the automatic before getting out and Eliot hears that little voice again.
</p><p> Eliot finds the catch and lifts the hood, steam billowing around his head. “It’s blown a hose. Need something we can use as a temporary seal ‘till we can get to the next town.”
</p><p>Quinn roots through his bag. “Will these do?” He throws Eliot a box of Trojans and a bag of cable ties.
</p><p>“Seriously, one or the other I get but…That’s one hell of an emergency kit.” Eliot mocks.
</p><p>“Hey, don’t look at me like that. In my defence I’ve never used both at the same time.” 
</p><p>Eliot, still wreathed in steam like a minor devil, grins back at him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Day 4 – Don’t Mind the Blood (if it Gets the Job Done)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>In which there is bickering, fighting and sex.</p><p>Oh and to the person who asked, all the titles are lifted from Tyler Bryant and the Shakedown who have been my constant soundtrack.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tulsa to Albuquerque</p><p>The motel outside Tulsa can only offer them two small single rooms at opposite ends of the building which, they take, reluctantly. It’s going to make looking after the package and the car so much harder but, with the Thunderbird still hissing and steaming, they don’t have a choice. The temporary repair won’t last long enough to get any further.
</p><p>Next to the motel, in a field burnt brown by the sun, there’s a party going on, a pre-season fundraiser for the Golden Hurricanes. Eliot counts at least a dozen barbecue pits, along with a bar in a huge white marquee and a slightly lopsided stage wreathed in the team colours. The tinny PA makes the obligatory marching band sound like they’re playing kazoos, and there’s the dull boom of a t-shirt cannon. Quinn winces.
</p><p> Behind the counter, the clerk promises, “they’ll be done by midnight,” with the forced friendliness only a service employee lying through his teeth can muster. Eliot doubts it. He’s been here before, speeches by the great and good, a few beers, a half competent covers band, a few more beers, hands up the skirt or down the pants of some stranger in the back of someone else’s pickup, a little weed, more beers. It’s like the diner all over again where he found himself cutting up his food then moving his fork to his right hand to eat. It’s all the things he loved, and hates, misses and wants to forget about Oklahoma.
</p><p>He volunteers to fix the car just to watch it all happening and Quinn obligingly takes the briefcase to his room. Without the right tools and with the deafening noise of the band at his back it takes far longer than he expected. So long that, part way through he accepts a beer from a bunch of teens who declare the car ‘rad and retro’ before staggering off across the field muttering about old guys and their old cars. When he’s done, he taps on Quinn’s door, just checking in to make sure they have a plan for the evening. The TV's on in the corner of the room and there’s an old black and white movie playing that he’s pretty sure he’s seen before. It’d help if he could hear the dialogue but, it’s so loud outside that even with the volume right up you wouldn’t be able to work out what Bogart was saying to Bacall unless you were a lip reader.
</p><p>Quinn’s stretching and tapping his fingers, the same sort of exercises Eliot does before he picks up a guitar, or a gun. Close up he can see the evidence of bad breaks; scars and joints that are not quite as supple as they could be. The tattoo on Quinn’s hand covers a long straight scar that’s only visible when the light strikes it right and, if he had to hazard a guess, he’d say razor rather than knife. The edges are sharp and distinctive. 
</p><p>“This job ain’t forgiving, you got an out?” he asks.
</p><p>“Two more years.” Quinn says, like he has a definite date in mind. As if men like them can plan that far in advance. “Get out before RSI sets in.” He rotates his wrists slowly in a move that could have been learned from a Balinese dancer. The left one clicks with each rotation.
</p><p>“You gonna do that?” Eliot asks, gesturing at the camera. “You’re pretty good.”
</p><p>“Thanks.” Quinn smiles, warm and unguarded and Eliot sees something he didn’t know he needed. “I don’t know, maybe. I’ve got investments, a couple of houses. Never even been to one of them.” He stretches his hands out again and cracks his knuckles.
</p><p>“Here?”
</p><p>“No, the property market's too slow, you can’t make money; London, Amsterdam,” he pauses and glances away, ”you know.” Eliot’s sure he doesn’t work out of either of those locations so that unspoken third might be home, or as close to it as people like them get.</p><p>***
</p><p>Later, Quinn wakes him from a fitful sleep with a text then a quiet tap on the door. He looks tired and edgy as he hands over the briefcase. “I swear if I hear one more verse of their team song I’m going to come back and blow their fucking stadium up,” he spits.
</p><p>”I can always call Parker an’ see if she has any spare C-4.” He offers.
</p><p>”Please. Tell her I’d give her anything. She can even come and watch.”
</p><p>”Dangerous offer, man. You’ve not seen what she’s like round explosives.”
</p><p>Mercifully, nearly an hour later, the party’s burned itself out and Eliot tries to immerse himself in Kit Carson’s role in the Mexican-American war. Halfway through chapter six he realises he hasn’t taken in a word because he’s listening for Quinn’s breathing to even out as he falls asleep.</p><p>***</p><p>The next morning, things go badly from the start. Pulling out of the parking lot Eliot’s hose repair fails and has to be redone, twice, before they can get the car back on the road. The second time Quinn pointedly stays behind the wheel, making it very clear that he’s driving the next leg.
</p><p>“Careful. Don’t rev it at the lights, it’s not a Ferrari.”
</p><p>“Like I’d need to rev a Ferrari. This piece of shit weighs as much as a tank and has the pulling power of a three-legged pony.”
</p><p>”Yeah well, if you let me drive, boy <b><i>I</i></b> wouldn’t have any problems.”
</p><p>”Right! Do your team know just how much of a control freak you are?”
</p><p>It’s hotter than the previous day, if that’s possible, the road throwing up a heavy reddish dust that makes putting the top down impossible. Even their sunglasses fail to keep it out and Eliot rubs his scratchy eyes every ten minutes. He’s not slept well. He’d forgotten what it’s like to work alone, the clench in your stomach that that comes with knowing any backup is too far away to be any use and Christ, he feels old just for remembering. 
</p><p>Unsurprisingly, given how the morning’s gone so far, Quinn’s driving is getting on his nerves. He’s obviously more used to manual transmissions and today those abortive moves to change gear before he remembers are like fingernails on a blackboard or the feel of a spoon where the silvering has worn off. 
</p><p>Quinn’s not doing much better than him. He’s not shaved this morning and there’s a tension in his shoulders and jaw which wasn’t there before. Eliot wonders briefly if that’s all down to a lack of sleep.
</p><p>It’s inevitable that by the time they get to the New Mexico border they go from bickering to outright hostility.
</p><p>It’s not even as if it’s over anything important, just the best place to eat in Bratislava.
</p><p>“Mlok of course. How the hell is that even a question? The perfect Fin-de-Siècle interior, the art. It’s not like there’s anywhere else even half decent.”
</p><p>”So, if the room’s got a painted ceiling and more frickin’ gold leaf than a Romanov Palace you can ignore the fact that they can’t cook kapustnica to save themselves. It’s cabbage soup! How can you screw up cabbage soup?  At least at škola they can cook without making everything taste like dish water.”
</p><p>“It’s the back room of a Soviet era school. If the first course costs as much as a good bottle of champagne I don’t want to sit at a fucking child’s desk in an unpainted classroom to eat it.”
</p><p>“Like you’d know what good champagne tastes like. Your taste buds are shot if you think Mlok can make kapustnica.”
</p><p>“Says<i> Mr Fine Cuisine</i>, the man who just yesterday ordered catfish, which literally tastes like dirt. I suppose I’m just grateful you didn’t go for anything more <i>redneck</i>. Is there anything? Is that all your momma cooked in the trailer park you grew up in?” The last sentence is delivered in exaggerated mockery of Eliot’s own accent.
</p><p>Eliot’s control fails. “Screw it. Stop the car! You can drive the rest on your own, son!” he growls. It’s not like he means it, not really, they’re in the middle of nowhere. But the need to have something to break the tension between them, to ease the itchy feeling under his skin, is overwhelming. Mind you, if they do stop, he’s probably going to punch someone, and Quinn’s closest.
</p><p>Quinn pulls onto a side road but keeps driving, his jaw clenched, the leather of the steering wheel creaking beneath his fingers. Then, all at once, he rubs his thumb over his cheekbone, the one Eliot broke, and pushes his sunglasses up into his hair. When he speaks the words come out haltingly like they’re painful to say, but it is an apology, of sorts.
</p><p>“My mother used to make <i>revanistenklöpse</i> when I was a kid.” his tone is low and conciliatory and that hint of an accent is there again. “Every Saturday when we got in from football practice. If I could go back...”
</p><p>There’s a long pause as Eliot takes this in. Quinn’s obviously not talking about gridiron. “<i>Revisionist meatballs?</i>” he translates. In his head all the tumblers line up. “You grew up in the East?” 
</p><p>“Berlin, I was 12 when the wall came down.” Quinn’s shoulders drop slightly, and then the words spill out like flood water breaking through a weir.
</p><p>”My father was a CIA <i>asset</i>. He was persuaded to put us in the ‘Vorkämpfer’ programme, you know indoctrinating kids who barely knew what politics was to<i> ‘work’</i> in the old Communist countries. The Americans promised him my brother and I would get a good education, go to university, all the benefits. Of course, they lied but by then he was dead, and my mother was grieving too much to do anything about it.” He takes a shaky breath but doesn’t stop speaking. 
</p><p>“There’s an airbase just outside Bremen, we got trained there, guns, knives, fight club, retrieval, extraction. You know, all the things I’m good at. Learned my English from the tv and a handler from Tuscaloosa, Alabama.” He says Alabama like it has four long syllables and in an accent Eliot now knows is not his own. 
</p><p>“When Clinton shut the programme down, they just cut us adrift, almost overnight. Packed their little stars and stripes flags into their Government issue suitcases and went home. I’d just turned twenty. Should have been drinking my way through the student bars of Munich but instead I spent my birthday on a rooftop in Bialystok with an SV-98 and a night scope for company.” His tone’s flat now, almost scarily matter of fact. But Eliot understands, it’s the way he talks about some of the things he’s done too. 
</p><p>“There were plenty of people willing to take up the slack afterwards. Give us jobs, pay us in more than promises and Uncle Sam’s thanks.”
</p><p>”You work with a crew?” Eliot’s both curious and too American not to want to deflect the obvious political conversation.
</p><p>“I’ve never really worked with anyone longer than a couple of days. Honestly, I’m not sure how you do it, all those arguments about how to do the job.” He pauses. “I met a British ex-para. He took me in when I screwed up in Kaliningrad. Was either that or explain to the police why I’d bled out on his balcony. He got me an agent and showed me how to deal with the money.  Been independent ever since. Easier that way. You don’t owe anyone any more loyalty than they can pay for.”
</p><p>Eliot wonders if the man in Kaliningrad was the same man who helped him track down Quinn for the Dubenich job. </p><p>***
</p><p>
  <i> Major Collins’ voice crackled over the line from Tirana. ”Quinn? Mouthy bugger when he was younger, but he’s managed to rein it in a good bit in the last few years. Don’t know what you want him for, don’t worry, Spencer, I won’t ask. But, he’s bloody good with a rifle. Better than you, better than me.” 
</i>
</p><p>
  <i>That was saying something, Collins had been Olympic standard in his day.
</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“One of those men who can shoot between heartbeats.” He went on. “You remember, a year or so ago, that Czech mob boss, Jan Brabec?  More than a mile across the Vltava, on a windy day, with the temperature near zero. And that Austrian fascist MP, the one everyone thought was being run by the CIA? Dropped him in a Christmas market so crowded it was a couple of minutes before his bodyguard even realised. 700 yards, single shot, didn’t touch anyone else.”
</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Collins paused. “More importantly, I’m guessing, you can trust him. He works to contract, but he’s bright enough to offer solutions should you need them. Of course, he’s not as good in a fight as you are, though he is bloody quick, so you do need to take that into account.”
</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“He’s good enough.” Eliot replied, remembering how close Quinn had been to taking him down. 
</i>
</p><p><i>“OK, if he’s who you want, then your best bet is to contact Nightingale in London. Quinn does all his courier work these days. Odd stuff, if you ask me. Personally, I wouldn’t touch any of it with a bargepole. But, he’ll be able to put you in touch.”</i> </p><p>***
</p><p>Quinn’s pushed his sunglasses back down over his eyes and his foot on the accelerator.
</p><p>”Shit!” Eliot says. Because what the hell is he supposed to do with any of that. It not like bragging you know ten ways to destroy a bridge, fifteen if you actually have explosives or you that did a job three years ago in Kathmandu that ended up being a bit messy. This is personal, secrets probably unspoken to anyone for years, if at all, and he can’t decide whether he wants to know everything or pretend he never heard any of it.
</p><p>In the end it’s decided for him. He looks up through the dusty windshield and there’s a battered grey Hummer coming straight at them. He swears again. “We’ve got company. Pull up, don’t get…”
</p><p>“…too close.” Quinn interrupts.
</p><p>“Side on if there’s room. Give them a bigger target than you.” Quinn’s already slewing the car across the road while the Hummer speeds towards them. Eliot opens the door and rolls out of the car while its still moving and that’s another pair of Aviators he’s probably lost for good.
</p><p>Just in his peripheral vision he catches Quinn leaning over to the right and, if he were any closer, he knows he’d be able to hear the swearing. Late last night he’d taped the automatic under the rear seat with the emergency money. 
</p><p>It’s not a surprise when Kai Arlson gets out of the passenger side, shotgun pulled to his left shoulder. He’s a big man, military haircut - Marines Eliot’s brain supplies - six three, maybe 250 pounds. He’s running a little to fat these days but that doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous. Eliot hopes that a shotgun means the car is the target and that whoever wants it doesn’t want it badly damaged. Paintwork’s easily fixable, a .357 through the engine block less so.
</p><p> Kai gestures at the car. “Get the fuck out!”
</p><p>Quinn gets out slowly and stands behind the door of the Thunderbird, hands visible on the lip of the rolled down window.
</p><p>”Quinn, if I’d known it was you I’d have bought a bigger gun, shoved it right up your ass and pulled the trigger.” Kai manages to make his gesture with the shotgun obscene.
</p><p>”It’s nice to know you don’t hold a grudge.” Quinn says. Eliot can see he’s sizing up the risk of moving, his body one long line of potential movement. They both know Eli’s still in the Hummer and neither of them know what he might be carrying. 
</p><p>”Our employer is interested in that sweet ride of yours. All you need to do is walk away. Highway’s five minutes in that direction.” Kai waves his hand off to the left. “I’m sure some lonely trucker’ll give you a ride.” He gestures again making it quite obvious what sort of ride he’s talking about.
</p><p>”Well you’d know all about that. Is your ass still sore?” Quinn jokes.
</p><p>Kai takes two more steps forward and there’s a flurry of movement from the Hummer as Eli drops down from the driver’s side baseball bat in hand. He’s followed by two much younger men. Eliot doesn’t know their names, but he knows who they are by reputation, <i>The Apprentices</i>. Rumour has it that they’re the sons of either Kai or Eli but, no one’s sure which. But, neither of them can be much over 20 and there is a passing family resemblance so it is possible.
</p><p>”Last chance, Quinn.” Kai shouts. He pulls the trigger at the same moment Eliot punches him in the jaw and the shot goes wide missing the car, and Quinn, by inches. It takes him seconds to wrench the gun from Kai’s hand and disarm it, and a few more to get the man in a choke hold.
</p><p>He watches Quinn vault the car door as Eli sprints towards him, and only realises he’s distracted when Kai rakes a heel down his shin. Almost out of embarrassment he dislocates the man’s shoulder and breaks his nose for good measure. Over the sound of bone crunching he hears the distinct sound of someone unsheathing a knife.
</p><p>After that training and instinct take over as he drops into the deadly dance of a fist fight. Sweep, punch, elbow and Quinn at his back doing the same. He can almost feel the impact through the air as Quinn breaks the arm of one of the Apprentices with a baseball bat. He does hear the guy scream, so more than one bone then. 
</p><p>He turns and Eli’s right there, knife slashing right across the space where his shoulder was moments before. Instead of backing off he moves forward grabbing Eli’s elbow and pushing him down. His boot’s on the hand holding the knife in a split second and as Eli turns his head he swings and punches to keep him down. 
</p><p>And just like that, it’s over. Kai’s half dragging his brother away and they’re all piling back into the Hummer dripping blood and cradling broken bones.
</p><p> It’s far too soon, Eliot’s body is still primed for the fight, he’s tense, half hard, itching to take one more swing, feel one more impact.
</p><p>Quinn’s watching him, tracking his eyes down below Eliot’s belt. “If I’d have known that’s all it would take, I’d have brought a baseball bat to Boston.”  His eyes are as bright as his grin. His left thumb is hooked in his own belt loop, long fingers tracing over the obvious bulge. 
</p><p>For a moment Eliot wants to fight, wants to sweep Quinn off his feet and not in a romantic way. Hold him down and just take. He starts to speak but Quinn’s right there shoving both hands into Eliot’s hair and kissing him like he’s got something to prove.
</p><p> “Come on, Eliot! Now!”  He pulls Eliot to the car, fingers tight around his wrist and opens the rear door.
</p><p>It’s quick and dirty, they barely unzip and unbutton and there’s a stain that’s never going to come out of the leather.
</p><p> Afterwards, they’re both laughing and breathless, foreheads together, breathing the same air.
</p><p>With the Arlson’s truck scarcely out of sight, it’s probably the stupidest and most reckless thing Eliot’s done in ages and that includes that whole thing with the grenade and the gas station.</p><p>***
</p><p>When they get to the motel the sky’s black, the clouds heavy with rain. It’s hotter than hell and Eliot can feel the sweat sticking his t-shirt to his shoulders and the small of his back. He can barely breathe let alone think. His body is still stuck in the adrenaline rush even though they’ve been on the road for an hour.
</p><p>As they get in the room Quinn’s right there, shoving him back against the door and kissing him as if the world will to end if he doesn’t. And he revels in it, Quinn’s a fantastic kisser giving Eliot everything he wants with that sweet, wet slide of lips and tongue.
</p><p>He sorts through his bag, one handed, balancing it precariously between his hip and the dresser and even distracted as he is, he realises he’s not going to find what he wants.
</p><p>He pulls away. “Damn, no rubbers. You got some, Quinn?”
</p><p>“No, gave them to you to fix the hose yesterday.”
</p><p>He tells his brain to shut up about risks but, his mouth says, “I ain’t barebacking with you Quinn!” 
</p><p> Quinn’s big strong hands bracket his head and he smiles like he’s had the best idea in the world. “You going to let me blow you without? I’ve been wanting to since we got in the car.” 
</p><p>“This afternoon?”
</p><p>“Let’s go with that shall we.” He dips his head a little and looks through his eyelashes. It’s not boyish but it’s coy just the same. Eliot pushes his fingers against Quinn’s lips, between the hardness of his teeth and gets bitten for his trouble, not hard but enough to momentarily steal his breath away. Quinn, overconfident bastard that he is, is dropping to his knees before he gets his answer. 
</p><p> Not that he’s made the wrong move. Earlier, in the car, it hadn’t been nearly enough to sate Eliot’s hunger. “Yeah,” he breathes. “If you’re insistin’.” He can smell himself now, sweat and arousal, hands barely cleaned on the hem of his shirt from earlier.
</p><p>There’s a quick sharp flash and seven seconds later thunder rolls round the room.
</p><p>Quinn’s hands on him, stripping his jeans and underwear down to his ankles are rough and smooth in the same places as his own, a peculiar sort of familiarity. 
</p><p>Awkwardly, Quinn reaches over and pulls the briefcase into Eliot’s line of sight. It’s probably the first clumsy thing Eliot’s seen him do all week.
</p><p>“Don’t take your eyes off it.”
</p><p>“Screw that!” Eliot hooks a heel over the case and tucks it behind his ankles.
</p><p>“OK.“ Quinn tips his head slightly. “That works.”
</p><p>He loves this, there’s almost nothing better than watching someone blow you. Those first few minutes when they learn what you like, how to make your breath hitch and your pulse rise. He slides his hand under Quinn’s jaw, thumb drifting over the hollow of his cheek, and up into his rough curls. He wants to do more, push him hard and fast but he doesn’t need to. Quinn’s a quick study and all he has to do is go along for the ride. It builds and builds and somehow Quinn holds him there for what feels like forever until he comes so hard he whites out and it’s only the wall and his fingers gripping the door frame that stop him ending up on his ass.
</p><p>In that moment the storm breaks and the rain hammers against the window in time with his heartbeat. 
</p><p>When he gets his breath back Quinn’s on the bed his pants undone and his hand on his erection slowly rolling the foreskin back and forth over the head. There’s a sheen of sweat on his neck and jaw, darkening the collar of his shirt. In the half light his eyes are almost black, startling against the white of his face in the lightning flares.
</p><p> Just for a moment Eliot hesitates. He flashes to another time, going to his knees for another man. A man with a long lean form armoured in a suit and tie. He looks again and sees the vulnerability in Quinn’s eyes, in his bitten lips and the way his free hand stutters back and forth across his chest. This isn’t a power play. Quinn isn’t asking for anything he wouldn’t freely give himself. He catches Quinn’s shoulder, urges him round to sit on the edge of the bed and then pulls him into a deep heated kiss. 
</p><p>“Get your pants off, boy.” Eliot pulls back and strips out of his own t-shirt. By the time his knees hit the floor Quinn’s leaning back propped up on his elbows, naked from the waist down, with his shirt half open and pushed above his hips. He has tattoos on either side of the slight softness of his belly, a compass and a camera, and under his fingertips Eliot can feel both hide scars. There’s a bruise just starting to darken on his left hip. “You got clipped.” He admonishes and when he presses his fingers into the mark, he can’t help noticing how hard Quinn’s cock flexes.
</p><p> He starts slow. Long licks, fingers just loose enough to tease. Uncut, Quinn’s a hell of a lot more sensitive than he is and it’s easy to make him whine and clutch at the sheets. His bare shoulders slip in the sweat on Quinn’s thighs with each dip of his head. He tightens his lips and fingers, moves faster, harder, runs his tongue between foreskin and head and Quinn’s swearing, broken words in a handful of languages. His fingers clutch reflexively at Eliot’s shoulder thumb pressing under his collarbone. As his back bows and the muscles in his stomach tighten, Eliot grips his bruised hip and Quinn comes fast and hard.
</p><p>Lightning cracks across the room like a gunshot.
</p><p>Eliot spits into the glass on the nightstand and walks through to the bathroom.
</p><p>Quinn’s voice carries over the next rumble of thunder. “Eliot, Where the fuck did you put the Sig?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Day 5 – All About the Ride, Baby</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Albuquerque to Phoenix
</p><p>Eliot hates this part of the New Mexico-Arizona border. On either side of the I40, the lumpy grey desert stretches out for miles, with the only breaks in the monotony tiny clusters of run-down houses and isolated, gas stations. It reminds him of other places, pasts he’d rather forget. It’s all new to Quinn so he’s fascinated, for a while at least, by a landscape that could just as easily be the moon as America . He keeps his Leica in its case though, unsure after the first few attempts how to photograph somewhere so alien. 
</p><p>Eliot’s driving, needing the routine, the mechanical familiarity of driving to occupy his body while his brain sorts out Quinn’s life story. 
</p><p>When he first heard about what the CIA were doing in Eastern Europe, he’d brushed it off as another one of those over exaggerated fantasies so common in the intelligence community. Something better suited to a young adult novel where the clever orphan saves the <i>Land of the Free</i> from its cat-stroking, British-accented foes. He’d quickly realised it was little different from what he was seeing in Africa and Asia, child soldiers exploited and brutalised for the political ambitions of despotic leaders. Most of them dead by their twenties or so mentally scarred they couldn’t function in peacetime. Even Moreau, who wasn’t exactly discriminatory about who he employed, just as long as they could shoot straight and follow orders, steered clear of them. <i> Too much of a liability. I prefer a little more discipline and at least a veneer of civilisation. </i>
</p><p>He’s pretty sure Quinn must have ended up in the CIA’s orbit when he was barely in high school. Glancing over at the passenger seat, where he’s checking the rendezvous time on his phone, he wonders how old he was, the first time he pulled the trigger on a human target. Had he been like Eliot, twenty, scared out of his wits, vomiting his guts up afterwards, after the rush had faded. Or younger, trained to treat it like a computer game, distancing himself from the reality of exploding bone and flesh. 
</p><p>He’s never seen him use a gun, never seen if there’s a different type of light in his eyes when he has a target in his sights.

</p><p>Eliot’s killed since he left the Army and since he left Moreau, mostly for good reasons but it’s never been the focus of what he does, rarely been what he’s hired for. Specialists like Quinn, people who own $20,000 worth of customised kit they’re a different breed altogether. They haven’t talked about it, not really, aside from a few black humour tinged stories. But Eliot doesn’t know how Quinn decides which jobs to take, because he’s certainly good enough to be able to pick and choose, or how he justifies it. 
</p><p>He’s met a few contractors over the years, and they all have their reasons, their little quirks, the jobs they’ll take and the ones they won’t. There’s a woman who works out of Sao Paulo who won’t take jobs that involve dogs and a guy in Macau who vets his targets politically before deciding on whether to take the job or not. Once, in Juneau, trapped in a snowstorm, he met a man who defended the job in a single, simple, sentence. <i>If I show up at your door, chances are you did something to bring me there.</i>   They’re a group with a sort of morality, even if it’s a twisted one.

</p><p>***

</p><p>
The radio wows in and out barely holding a signal for a whole song and when Eliot switches it off, they drive with just the vibration of tires on the road as a soundtrack.
</p><p>
****

</p><p>
Mid-morning, they stop at a Navajo Trading post for coffee. Eliot picks up a Tony Hillerman novel he hasn’t read and Chester Nez, the Navajo code talker’s, biography. When he gets to the counter Quinn takes them from him paying for the books and their drinks.
</p><p>
“We haven’t talked about your cut of the fee.” He says as they get back to the car.</p><p>“I owed you.”</p><p>“Even so.”</p><p>“No cut, just a question.”</p><p>Quinn straightens up, tension obvious in his squared shoulders and thinned lips and Eliot wonder if he’s starting to regret telling him about his past. You know,” he offers “I could forget everything you’ve told me. About, you know.” He makes a vague all-encompassing gesture.
</p><p>
Quinn seems hesitant to answer, and when he does his accent isn’t matched to Eliot’s. “I need…wanted to tell someone who’d understand, at least a bit. What do you want to know?”</p><p>By his expression, the question clearly isn’t the one he’s expecting.  “What was it like?” Eliot asks. “The night the wall came down?”</p><p>Quinn lets out a soft little huff of breath and his shoulders relax. They get back into the car and after a long pause he asks. “How well do you know Berlin?” 
</p><p>
“Was there in 2008. I had a bit of time, so I walked the route of the wall, you know with one of those tourist maps.”</p><p>
 Quinn smiles, just a slight upward twitch of his lips but a genuine smile all the same. “In ’89 we lived on Bornholmer Strasse. A big apartment with enormous picture windows. It must have been built in the eighteen hundreds. There were fireplaces in every room and every spring storks would nest on the chimneys and every autumn we’d be sweeping sticks up from the grates as the nests fell apart.  It’s all gone now, torn down and replaced years ago, modern architecture for a re-united Germany.” The phrase sounds awkward as if he’s translating a half-heard slogan. 

</p><p>
“We were right across from the gate at the Bösebrücke bridge. You know, the first place people crossed. I could see the West every day from my bedroom. It might as well have been fairyland. I had as much chance of going there.” Quinn gestures as if, even now years later, he can look through the glass to the street in front of him. 

</p><p>
“There’d been demonstrations for weeks, people on the streets day and night, punks blasting music at all hours. Everyone expected the authorities to act at any moment. People were hoping for change but terrified of it at the same time, you know. That evening, when it started, when they opened the gates, it was just my mother and me at home. At first no one could believe it, they thought it was a trap and the arrests and the shooting would start as soon as they set foot on the bridge. But they didn’t, the guards just stood back. Some of them, even the <i>Vopos</i>, the police, took off their jackets and caps and joined the crowd. Then people realised it was real and there was a huge rush across the bridge, hundreds, thousands of people all moving together. Years later I found out it was more than twenty thousand.  Twenty thousand people crossing the Bösebrücke. More people than I’d ever seen in my life.” The memory stills him for a moment then he wraps his right hand around the steering wheel, knuckles whitening.

</p><p>
 “She grabbed my hand, so hard I had bruises the next day, and we ran downstairs. It was so cold, but she didn’t want to stop to put on her coat or let me put on mine. She didn’t want to miss the chance. She was still holding my hand as we went through the gate on the other side <i>und würde nicht loslassen</i>.” Quinn slips into German speaking faster, eyes shiny with emotion. “She wouldn’t let go; she didn’t want to lose me in the crowd. There were families there who hadn’t seen each other for years, hugging and crying and people on the wall with hammers, everyone shouting <i>die Mauer ist weg! Die Mauer ist weg!</i> Singing and drinking or just standing there not really believing it had happened. Did you see it, here, in America?”

</p><p>Eliot nods. “I think the whole world was watching. I came home and everyone was round the TV, even Pop who barely took any interest in anything except Main Street and the Lodge. It was the day I made up my mind to enlist,” he confesses. “I thought the world was changing and that I could make a difference. Course it ain’t and I couldn’t but, it’s what you think when you’re a kid.”

</p><p>***
</p><p>
They detour to Winslow, miles out of their way, just because the Eagles come on the radio and well, they may <i> never be here again</i>. At the intersection Eliot takes out his phone and sends a picture of the statue and the Route 66 sign. He hears Quinn’s phone buzz a second later. 

</p><p>
 “What would you do, if you could give this up tomorrow?” Quinn asks as they sit watching two local boys wash the Thunderbird.

</p><p>
 And that’s funny because he could, he’s richer than anyone has a right to be. He could give it up tomorrow, today, now if he wanted, if he thought he deserved to. 

</p><p>
 “Been thinking about opening a restaurant, local food, modern twists on Southern favourites; fried chicken, pecan pie and bourbon.” He glances sideways. “Might even put catfish on the menu.” 

</p><p>
”Funny.”

</p><p>
 I know this guy. Met him at the local farmers market. He’s got a vineyard out in the valley with a barn that’d be big enough for a kitchen and ten or so tables. Him and his wife want to retire to Seattle to be near their kids, so we’ve been talking about me buying the place.”

</p><p>
 “From breaking ribs to cooking them,” Quinn can’t resist the little dig. “What’s it like? The vineyard?”

</p><p>
“Twenty-five acres, organic certified, pinot gris, pinot noir and cabernet that they sell to a local co-op. It’s got this beautiful old house they don’t live in anymore, great big wooden windows, wraparound porch that looks like it’d collapse if you put a foot wrong, a dozen rooms that were last decorated in the seventies. A real fixer upper.” He gestures, sketching the building in the air. “It’s probably got rot right through but it’s gorgeous, you know, craftsman built in the way no one does it anymore. It’d take me maybe a year to get it in shape, but it’d be worth it.”

</p><p>
****
</p><p>
Quinn drives the last leg, the car gleaming in the sunlight. They’re still being careful, watching for threats but it’s easier now, more relaxed. Eliot finds himself distracted in a decidedly unprofessional way by Quinn’s hands on the steering wheel, on the flex of his wrists, on the way his throat moves when he speaks and swallows. 
</p><p>
The long day hasn’t blunted his desire for the other man, which is a novel sensation. With men, even with most women, the hunger usually burns itself out in a matter of hours. It’s been one-night stands for almost as long as he cares to remember. And, <i>OK Sophie, so I lied</i>, while he doesn’t always remember their names, he does try to make sure they enjoy themselves as much as he does. The one thing he doesn’t do, well not since…, well not for years, is sleep with people he works with. <i>Just look how that turned out last time</i>. But here, an hour out of Phoenix that’s exactly what he wants to do.

</p><p>
 “You got a room sorted out when we get there?” he asks.

</p><p>
“Motel on the I-17 near to where I’m making the delivery. Close to North Mountain Park”

</p><p>
He really doesn’t want to spend one more night in a roadside motel with paper thin walls and the tv turned up to drown out the people on either side. “We can do better than that. I’ll get Hardison to sort us…“ he pauses, wanting to give Quinn a choice. “One room or two?” he asks. “I’d prefer one but it’s your call.”
</p><p>
Quinn rubs the back of his neck. “I think one will be fine. Something with a big bed and a shower that does more than spit on you.” He brushes his hand briefly over Eliot’s, something that could easily be dismissed as reaching for the radio but isn’t.
</p><p>
A quick call and they have a suite at the <i>Las Bonitas</i>. <i>”Hope you took your trunks, man, that pool is enormous!”</i>.  
</p><p>
He doesn’t hear Parker and Hardison’s high-five over the rumble of the car.

</p><p>
***

</p><p>
The airport lounge is, in Sophie’s opinion, massively over air-conditioned and makes her wish she’d worn a jacket. But it’s not as if she’s going to be there more than half an hour or so. Just long enough to check it all went well and to put Plan B into action if it didn’t. 

</p><p>
She watches Danny Blue cross the concourse, eyeing up every woman, and a few of the men, who cross his path. America’s been good for him turning Micky Bricks’ apprentice into a confident operator in his own right. 

</p><p>
 “How did it go, Danny?”

</p><p>
He hefts the briefcase up on to the table. "Just like you said. Blond, brown eyes, tat on his right hand, grifters smile. Nowhere near as pretty as me though.  Your bloke Eliot was waiting round the corner. Hey, I do get to keep the car, right?” 

</p><p>
 She tunes him out right about then and opens the case. Wrapped in layer upon layer of plastic, and as far as she can see not tampered with in any way is a battered paperback copy of Sidney Sheldon’s <i>If Tomorrow Comes</i> and half a brick. Her contribution to this little enterprise.
</p><p>
 Danny puts his hand over hers and even though he’s an arrogant little wanker she can’t help but respond to the twinkle in his eye as he strokes his thumb over her pulse point. Flirting, even when he’s not on a grift comes as natural to him as breathing.

</p><p>
“Look sweetheart, I don't know what sort of con this is but walk away now. He is not a mark and if he is, you're playing way out of my league. He’s bloody dangerous.” Danny’s become surprisingly good at reading people and Sophie’s pleased he can see the threat behind Quinn’s professionally affable exterior. She might call Albie and let him know he really shouldn’t worry about Danny as much as he does.

</p><p>
”It’s OK,” she reassures him. “We’ve got it covered.”

</p><p>
 ****

</p><p>
The room’s just what Eliot would have chosen if he’d booked it himself, all muted colours and far enough from the pool and the bar that it’s quiet and private. There’s a large balcony that looks out towards the hills behind the hotel. Hills that are catching a light that has Quinn grabbing his camera almost before he finishes sliding his rifle case under the bed. 

</p><p>
 “Go on.” Eliot gestures at the door. “I’m gonna hit the gym.”
</p><p>
 “Just so you’re clear.” Quinn steps closer and puts his lips to Eliot’s ear, his English more accented than before. “I really want you to fuck me later.”

</p><p>
 ****

</p><p>
When Quinn comes back, he has sand on his boots and forearms, and his nose and cheeks are pink from the sun. He pushes his fingers through his hair leaving a dusty red streak in their wake.

</p><p>
”Wonder if the management knows their poolside barman is dealing on the side? I know he’s got a captive audience but eighty-five dollars a gram is high even here.” He checks the camera over, wipes a little dust from the body and clips it safely into its case. ”It’s OK, I didn’t. Who knows what the fuck it was cut with. Anyway, I’m guessing it’s probably not your thing.” 

</p><p>
Eliot’s hardly an innocent. He shrugs. “Gets me there but I can’t finish.” 

</p><p>
“Well, that is no fun at all.” Quinn picks up his bag. “I’m going to take a shower can you order some food?”

</p><p>
 Eliot holds out the room service menu. “Anything on here you don’t eat?” Most of it is a hell of a lot fancier than anything they’ve eaten on the road and he hopes at least someone in the kitchen knows what they’re doing, especially at these prices.

</p><p>
 ”It all looks good to me; the steak or chicken would be fine.” He turns the page. “Can you order some of this chocolate and chilli dessert?”
</p><p>
 Eliot thinks about some of Quinn’s choices over the past few days “You’ve got such a sweet tooth.”
</p><p>
“Oh, I’m all sweet.”

</p><p>
 When Quinn finally comes out of the bathroom, he’s wearing black jeans and a soft dark grey henley. His hair, loose, and barely dry, curls almost as far as his shoulders. 

</p><p>
 Eliot leans back in his seat, appraising. “Wasn’t sure you owned any normal clothes.”

</p><p>
 “I’m off the clock. Unless you think I need to impress you, then I’ll go back and put a suit on.” He leans against the wall, one foot raised like a hooker in a movie, challenging Eliot to say something.

</p><p>
Eliot blanks his face, looks him over, from bare feet to unshaven jaw, and says nothing for an entire minute. Eventually, without letting his poker face drop, he deadpans. “You’ll do.”  

</p><p>
They eat at the table on the balcony watching as the sun sets behind the hills. There’s no rush, even if this is their last full day together, they both know where this is going and they’re happy to take their time.

</p><p>
Over dinner Quinn tells an outrageous and probably massively embellished story about a job in Galway where he was chased by llamas. Eliot counters with the time he took a package to Jacksonville only to find the client had been shot dead by his own Rottweiler. A completely true story, except it was a Labrador not a Rottweiler and it was closer to Lake City than Jacksonville. 

</p><p>
They find out that they’ve both been ripped off by the same forger in Berne and hatch a plan to frame him for bond fraud. 

</p><p>
 After a few glasses of wine Quinn’s body language changes, becomes looser, the wary edges softened. He props his feet on the rail, and Eliot can see tattoos on his ankles, symbols that look as if they come from old alchemy books, black and red lines stark against his skin. He’s about to ask but then the wine’s finished and Quinn’s taking off his watch. He reaches across the table, catches Eliot’s wrist and starts to methodically remove the half dozen cuffs and bracelets; threading them on to his watch strap. An intimate action that has Eliot’s pulse climbing and the heat pooling in his belly. 

</p><p>
He pushes his glass across the table, chair squealing on the marble as he gets to his feet and crowds Quinn against the rail kissing him with an assertiveness he’d never use on a woman. 

</p><p>
"Don't go down too easy, boy. I need..." He tails off. He needs Quinn to understand.
</p><p>
"The adrenaline? Should I have bought the blow after all?"
</p><p>
"No, I need to know you could, would, stop it any time you wanted. Then I can relax, not watch myself all the time." 
</p><p>
Christ he's really hoping Quinn gets it, that he's not screwed it up before it starts. When you’re so used to using your body as a weapon it’s easy to hurt someone without meaning to if you don’t pay attention all the time, if you don’t rein in your baser instincts. 

</p><p>
Quinn steps backs and his stomach drops, arousal shifting to something else. So in his own head he misses the movement until it’s too late and Quinn has him shoved against the wall, both hands pinned above his head. That little extra height the other man has on him putting him on his toes.

</p><p>
Strong fingers press painfully into the hinge of his jaw as Quinn kisses him hard enough to draw blood. 

</p><p>
“You can put your foot down as hard as you like but, call me boy one more time,” his eyes go hard just for a moment and Eliot knows there’s something there, something old and painful. He twists his wrists hard. “and I'll make sure you can’t hold your own dick for a month.” He shoves a thigh up hard between Eliot’s legs rubbing against his balls in a way that’s equal parts arousing and threatening. 

</p><p>
  Finally, Eliot nods and straight away Quinn sweeps his feet from under him proving just how easily he could take control if he wanted.

</p><p>
 From there it’s a push/pull struggle across the room and a tangle of clothes as they undress.

</p><p>
”It‘s 35 degrees outside. You really need three shirts?”

</p><p>
”Least I have clothes. No underwear, seriously?”
</p><p>
Eventually, Quinn pushes him down onto the bed and holds him there. Nothing he couldn’t get out of if he wanted and when Quinn kisses him slow and deep, he really doesn’t want to. It’s pretty obvious that Quinn loves to kiss, and they stay like that for longer than he’d normally allow, the intensity fuelling a very different type of heat in him than the adrenaline rush of before. 

</p><p>
He maps Quinn slowly with lips and fingers, learning what makes him shiver and what makes him arch into the touch; fixing his coordinates and weight in the world, tasting the salt of his skin, and licking the cinnamon freckles dappled across his shoulders.

</p><p>
Concealed under that beautiful intricate tattoo down Quinn’s arm there’s a deep chemical burn and on his back a long ladder of stitch scars. Evidence of jobs gone wrong, of mistakes made.

</p><p>
Quinn speaks a very different language, touches as much with his eyes as with his hands or lips each long slow blink fixing him in a frame. Eliot wonders, in that brief moment between <i>right there</i> and <i>if you stop, I’m genuinely going to kill you</i> what it is he sees. He has far more scars. Evidence of a life lived badly and without sufficient caution. The women always ask, coo over the stories he tells. The boys are all bravado as if they could bear the scars themselves without the pain and the doubt. Quinn doesn’t ask, he can read them as easily as Eliot himself.
</p><p>
Finally, he settles between Quinn’s thighs, fingers brushing at the bruise in his hip, all dark eyed intent.

</p><p>
“How much prep do you need?”  

</p><p>
“Take it slow, I haven’t done this in a long time.” Quinn’s eyes track the movement of Eliot’s hand as he pulls on one of the latex gloves from the medical kit 

</p><p>
 “Figured since it was yours you wouldn’t be allergic.” 

</p><p>
“Boy scout.” The comment’s affectionate and amused.

</p><p>
 Eliot’s eyes light and he sketches a quick three finger salute which morphs into a one fingered one.

</p><p>
Quinn reaches down and effortlessly catches hold of his right ankle, opening himself to Eliot’s hands

</p><p>
"Christ, you’re flexible. Can you…?"

</p><p>
 "Put my heel behind my head? I can do that." Quinn interrupts. He looks down the length of his body and raises his eyebrows. "I can do <i>that</i> too."

</p><p>
 Eliot can’t help closing his eyes at the image his breathing shaky for a moment. “Christ, I’m gonna have to see that.”

</p><p>
 Whatever Quinn is going to say in reply is lost when he throws his head back and gasps as Eliot pushes his thumb past the ring of muscle. Quinn clenches then relaxes, and Eliot spins it out, taking far more time than it needs just to get that reaction again and again until Quinn’s shaking and begging, his cock as hard as steel against his belly.

</p><p>
 Then there’s just the condom, a bit more slick and Eliot slides into the tight heat slow and smooth grinning wildly as Quinn urges him to “Move, Eliot! Now!” He moves, knowing it’s not nearly enough, tiny rocking motions that have Quinn digging his nails into his shoulder, knowing he’s teased too much when Quinn moves to roll them over, to take control. They can do that later. For now he hooks Quinn’s leg over his shoulder and sets a pattern of long fast strokes that have him almost pulling out then driving back till he’s balls deep. The change of angle’s just what they both need, Quin jacking himself, left-handed, with a speed that has him coming in long white spurts over his chest. Two, three, four more thrusts and Eliot’s pushed over the edge, sooner than he’d like. He wants to do it again, now, but for the moment, as they pull apart, all he can do is fall on to the bed endorphins flooding his system.

</p><p>
 ****
</p><p>
When he wakes it’s not quite dawn. He finds himself tracing that long scar on Quinn’s back, counting the 32 stitches that once ran from his shoulder blade to the swell of his ass. In the half-light, fingertips barely touching skin, he has an urge to take a pen and sign his name along the line.

</p><p>
Quinn turns his head and as the tiny plate in his cheek distorts the skin a little Eliot realises that he’s already left a far more permanent signature.

</p><p>
“If there’s not someone pointing a gun at us go back to sleep.” Quinn shifts and moves one big warm hand to splay across Eliot’s chest There's a trust in letting a man who could easily break your neck put his hand across your collarbone, his thumb in the hollow of your throat. But he figures if Quinn can trust him with his past then he can trust him with this.
</p><p>
 Later, after one more sleepy orgasm they lay still and quiet limbs too loose to think about getting up. He doesn’t know if he deserves this but Eliot knows, if he wants he can have it, have Quinn in his bed and in his life. As a pool of sunlight creeps across the sheets he turns Quinn’s arm reading the ring of text that circles it <i>Fate shuffles the cards, but I play the hand.</i>

</p><p>
***

</p><p>
  At the door, before he leaves for Portland, he writes his addresses, the pub and his house, on hotel notepaper and folds it into Quinn’s top pocket.

</p><p>Fin
</p>
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